Production: Stage 2 -- Filming Day 3

On the third day of filming we decided to film the beginning office scene when Frank is fired by his boss Lucas.

We used the room that was booked out by Brian when location scouting, It was a convenient location due to being in Jennison meaning we had less of a distance to carry equipment.

We manage to film this scene quite quickly as we knew what we were doing and learnt from any previous mistakes from last shoots.

Although there was some tension and debate about certain shots, we manage to get initial shooting done in the morning and pick ups in the afternoon.

After two previous shots of acting experience I found this scene easier to do and felt more relaxed and comfortable as the character of Frank. When I enacted the frustration in this scene, I truly felt the anger that Frank would feel and I wanted to convey this emotion as realistically as I could to the audience.

The director worked well on giving me acting directions.

Production: Stage 2 -- Filming Day 2

During the second day of filming we filmed again in Lawrence's flat this time filming "Frank's bedroom".

We found that the scenes we did took longer than the previous shoot due to more technical camera angles we used and the large amount of shots.

This scene required a large use of my facial expressions as there were a lot more close ups of my face. This was a good way for me to learn how to convey emotion to the audience and develop confidence in my acting skills.

We used more shots than required which gave the editor more of an option to choose from when editing the film.

Production: Stage 2 -- Filming Day 1

The first day of filming was done inside Lawrence's flat.

We used this location as the lounge scene for Frank's house.

The scenes only required me as the actor and as it was our first scene we've filmed it took some time to settle in and set up equipment.

The director, Shiv and I talked through what he wanted me to do within the scenes. As it was my first time for this film production it took a few goes so we had to do a few retakes. Although this sadly affected our time management and redoing too many scenes meant we did not have time to do any others we planned in the day.

We also had some issues with sound such as the mic attached to my collar, which was incredibly sensitive and would pick up a lot of loud rustle and static.

Seminar Short Film Project

Short film seminar session: 'The Phone'

In one of the seminars we were set to produce a short film which worked on continuity and had a simple understandable story.

They assigned us different locations in the EDA department to begin filming.

We shot the whole movie within the 2 hour session.

When shown to the tutor, several issues were identified:

• There was too much of a slow pan across an empty room at the beginning of the film.
• Every cut was a dissolve.
• We were missing several close ups such as when I was looking at the phone on the desk.
• Missing key continuity shots.
• No ending to the film.

We decided to do the pick ups required for the film and added more shots to flesh out the storyline and ensure continuity was prevalent in the film.

The finished film is show below:

Actors: Chi-Yin Wong (Me)
             Liam De Costa

Sound:  Brian Wong

Cameraman: Chris Robbins

Editor/Director: Lawrence Thomas James Maskell

Pre-Production: Stage 1 -- Acting Research from movies

Pre-Production: Stage 1 -- Research into Acting and Inspiration

Before production began I decided to some research into acting and looking at films for inspiration.

I have had prior acting experience when I was younger for a theater production of South Pacific. It has been a long time since acting and acting in front of a camera is different than on stage therefore I had to learn as if I was fresh to the experience.

I started with the basics and simply searched up how to act: http://www.wikihow.com/Act

Using this article I was able to learn the basics which enabled me the confidence and skill for acting in preparation for production of our film especially due to the film having minimal dialogue, a lot of the acting requires my body language and facial expression to be able to convey my characters though. The film is mainly action orientated which makes it easier to convey emotions such as fear, anger and concern.

I learnt that the most important points where:

• Pinpoint character traits: Come up with a back story for the character something only I know about the character and how that has influenced that character to be who he is now. His favorite food, music. Ethnic and cultural influences. I found it easy to relate to this character as I also have the same geek/otaku interests and also know how it feels to be undermined by an authority figure.

• Emote to ensure the audience can understand what the character is trying to convey without the use of words due to the lack of dialogue in the film.

• Do not break character, become the character. Get into method and almost live like the character. During the weeks of filming I tried to envision my life as Frank, I did not shave or get my haircut (also due to continuity), I wanted to feel the grubbiness that Frank would feel when he was unemployed and I would hold my whole demeanor as if I was Frank, luckily I enough am already quite a geek,

• Listen to the director, as the director knows the production and understands the vision he wants to create out of the film. Ask the director for questions before filming to ensure I know what he is looking for. Take criticism from them seriously and understand why they want you to act a certain way in a scene.

• Learn and familiarize with the script, so I was prepared and knew what I'd need to do for when I was on set. I read it multiple times and remembered any actions and lines which I would rehearse acting in different way doing multiple takes so I can evaluate my own acting skills.

Pre-Production: Stage 1 -- Location Scouting/Recce

We decided due to the pleasureful weather of that day, we would go location scouting for our location recce after out meeting.

Since we had just read the script we needed a suitable location for where the fight scene (the most prominent scene and where the majority of the film occurs) would be filmed. Preferably a wooded area.

For a suitable location it had to have the following attributes:

• Not a lot of traffic (people walking through interrupting shots).

• An adequate distance from roads and buildings (no noise interruptions from cars and people).

• Had some wide space enough for a fight scene to be performed.

Since we are filming on campus, it was perfect to find a location as there is a plentiful wooded area right on the hill of the campus.

As another member of the group and I had explored this area before we already had in mind certain locations in the forested area to be used for filming.

The area we scouted is located here:

The forest area by the University Road (51.294049, 1.067596)









Below are pictures I had taken of the location:

Pre-Production: Stage 1 - The Second Meeting: Plot Concept and Treatment

For our second meeting which we did via Skype call. We used a Google Document which had all our notes and ideas/concepts written on there. Due to Google Document's auto save ability which instantly updates the documents we could see the changes each person had made or added to the document.

By developing the previous ideas, changing and combing concepts, we were able to begin discussing the treatment ideas and came up with a final concept for out plot which we were all happy with.

Title: Hireahit.com

Logline: When a man gets fired he takes extreme measures for some fried chicken.

Tone: Dark comedy, irreverent, action.

Setting: Modern day - office and forest/wooded environment.

Shooting style: Heavily stylized. Handheld during fight sequences and use of color grading.

Acting: Dramatic and action based. Serious but with slight comedic undertones.

Story: We open with a man being fired by his boss. "You're Fired" appears stamped on the screen. His name is Frank Wu. Frank doesn't take it very well and storms out. Frank goes home angry and hungry. Checking his wallet and the fridge, he finds both empty. Desperate to make some money, Frank goes online and sees a pop up advertisement for Hireahit.com, a website where the public cand advertise for hitmen to take out a target of their choosing. He sees how much he can make and takes a job. The website informs him that the target's identity is unknown but that they will be at a certain place at a certain time - walking through the woods at 1:00pm.

Frank tools up, takes a quick look at his credit card and ordering his weapons from a courier, he takes everything he can get his hands on, gauntlets, knifes, guns, he goes through the kitchen drawers and grabs frying pans and blenders stuffing them in his bag.

Frank waits for his mark to appear in the woods and right on cue a man approaches. He is wearing a large brimmed hat and scarf, obscuring his face. Frank tackles the man and they fight.

Frank has stuffed all the items he ordered online into a bag, without looking at them, ad the wrong items have arrived. He stares at each item with disbelief and horror as he pulls them out, each item more ridiculous than the last. He uses the items against the boss who's using real weapons.

As Franks is about to kill the mark they reveal their identity. It's Frank's ex boss Lucas. Lucas was nervous that Frank might be bitter about the firing so he wanted to hide his identity as he walked home. Frank is shocked that the mark is his old boss, pausing momentarily to decide whether to go through with it. A lear appears over Frank's face and he stabs him, killing him.

We cut to Frank at home. We hear a cha-ching noise and see a large amount of money has been deposited in Frank's account on his screen. Frank is surrounded by fried chicken boxes with a greasy please smile on his face.



Character Bios:

Frank Ramos Akamai Wu - the employee/hitman

• 24 years old.
• Pacific-Latino Asian American descent.
• Frank works for a large corporate marketing company but is disillusioned with the job.
• He doesn't care for the work, doesn't value the company and doesn't get on with his colleagues.
• His clothes don't fit very well looking awkward, suggesting he is ill at ease in his position. Appears quiet but below surface ready to snap/
• Frank lives alone.
• Geek into Otaku culture and adorns his walls with posters and art.

Lucas - The Boss.

• 30 years old
• Lucs is very career driven.
• Has sacrificed nearly everything in his life to get to current position in middle management.
• Nobody likes Lucas at work.
• He is willing to use other people to get ahead in life.
• He thinks that he is smarter than he actually is and that his devious ways go unnoticed.
• Spare time he is a prolific weapons dealer.
• Dressed in immaculate suit.
• Obsessive
• Lucas lives alone and has no social life.

Once we had the treatment written down and our concept finalized we began to progress in pre-production. I decided to begin research into acting and style of acting from action/comedy movies. Other members of the team began constructing the script and drawing the storyboard.

Pre-Production: Stage 1 - The First Meeting: Brainstorming and Initial Film Plot Ideas

During the first meeting we also decided to brainstorm and put together ideas for the film plot.

The overall theme of the film had to revolve around the concept of:

"The Greatest Day"

When deciding the plot, we all agreed on a fantasy or over the top style fight scene:

• The use of various weaponry with a increasing climax of tension with the fighting style beginning with hand to hand escalating to melee based weaponry and ultimately guns.

As members of the group and I have had experience with Adobe After Effects we knew this would be possible to do.

Brian and I also decided to go into Canterbury town to scout for locations for filming prior to the meeting.


Initial idea (Lawrence's):

Int Lawrence's room-

Phone receives a text- crash zoom

Something in the text triggers a fantasy in Chi-Yin's head

Cue hot fuzz style gearing up montage

Chi-Yin faces up against an opponent outside in woods

They fight each other using all sorts of weapons that appear, super-powers, melee and guns, all time of combat possible.

Fighting nameless opponent

Chi-Yin wins

Wakes up again in his bed, realizes it's a dream within a dream,

Looks at his phone again. It's another text, this time something mudane, a text from the university about the lectures of the day.

Antagonist could be wearing animal masks and a suit. Every time they get knocked down they recover wearing a different mask. Or disguises to conceal and add ambiguity.

This became the basic perquisite idea which our current script had developed from. We knew that it would involve a fight scene involving various weaponry and disguises.

We decided to develop this concept by finding that we needed a reason for the protagonist to have a motivation for such a fight as the previous concept of fantasy caused from a text seem difficult to do.



We further developed the idea as shown below:

A man is dressed in a prison jumpsuit in a cell. Someone off screen says something like, "Time's up today's the day". The man has a really stupid grin on his face.

He walks outside and checks his wallet, it's empty.

He goes to a library to use the internet.

He sees a pop up for a website where people advertise for a hit-man hits.

He clicks agree on one, and immediately gets a phone call saying,

"Thank you for choosing *name of hit-man service*". "Your chosen target is *name*." "Last known location - *name* woods. Please be discrete!"

Que a tooling up sequence (opens cupboard to see lots of weapons hanging) [similar to Hot Fuzz style montage].

Once tooled up zooms into eye in bedroom, zooms out into woods.

Antagonist walks into shot.

Fight scene ensues.

Just as he's going in for the final blow he pauses, and asks, why does someone want you dead?

Antagonist replies, "Some reason that the audience would agree with but that is funny for example I play with my phone at the cinema"

Protagonist thinks for a second and then says "Yeah you got it coming" and kills him/

Fade to close up of hit-man back in bed looking full and happy.

Zoom out to reveal he is surrounded by empty fried chicken boxes.

We decided to analyse and combine our previous ideas, taking apart and implement new ideas that would improve our plot:

• Instead of a student as protagonist uses someone who is skint

• The target could turn out to be someone known to the hit-man

• Close up of chicken filled mouth for ending

For the concept of the characters Lawrence and I would have to act:

• Broke turned Hit-Man (protagonist played by myself)
• Geek/Nerd culture fan (shown by room decor), likes otaku culture.

• The Mark/Target (antagonist played by Lawrence)
• Mysterious needs an alternate surname. Dark and ambiguous.

Choreography of fighting ideas:

• Begin with hand to hand

• Move onto melee weapons

• Finish with guns

• Ducking and dodging behind logs and trees

• Throwing empty weapons

Taking on board comments from the tutor we decided to change the tone:

• Someone broke who just got fired.

• The hit could be their old boss

• Conceal identity of the boss until just before the protagonist is about to kill them, at which point the boss reveals his face and says it's him. Revenge motivation.

After taking on all these notes we developed a final concept we all agreed with and other members of the team began drafting a script whilst I began research on acting.

Pre-Production: Stage 1 - The First Meeting: Delegation of roles.

We all decided to have our first meeting with all 5 members to discuss and plan:

What the story of the film should be.

What roles shall be delegated.

 We eventually came with the outcome that my roles were:

• Production, I shall act with my co star Lawrence.
• I have had some prior acting experience in theater when I was very young. The role also has minimal to no dialogue which we made it more comfortable for us to perform.

• Post-Production, I shall work the sound effects editing and the scoring of the music for the film.

The Team Members for Moving Image

Team Members and their roles

My fellow team members are listed below:

• Chris Robbins (cdr9)                     Writer/Booker/Cameraman/Storyboarder/Producer

• Shiv Kumar (sk585)                       Director/Storyboarder

• Brian Wong (bw302)                     Location Scout and Research/Sound Man

• Thomas Lawerence James Maskell (tjlm2)                                                                               Prop master/Storyboard Artist/ Secondary Actor/Editor

We are in: Group 10

Their blogs are listed below:

Blogs:

Chris Robbins                                         cdrmovingimage.blogspot.com

Shiv Kumar                                             sk585movingimage.blogspot.com

Thomas Lawrence James Maskell        thomasmaskelltjlm2.blogspot.co.uk

Brian Wong                                             brianwongmovingimage.blogspot.co.uk

Moving Image - El342

Welcome to my blog for the Moving Image (module EL342) project!

I shall document the process behind the creation of my production team's and my short film, the production of the short film and finally the outcome of the film and the response afterwards. This shall be split into 3 different stages:

• Pre Production

• Production

• Post-Production

Each blog post will contain each heading and these heading correspond to the stage of production we are currently in and what is happening in it.


About me

Name:      Chi-Yin Wong

About:       I am a first year undergraduate student at the University of Kent studying Digital Arts with a Year in Industry (BA).

Role in pre-production:

Role in production:       Acting

Role in Post-Production:       Sound editing and Music scoring.

I hope you enjoy my blog and witness the challenges I may encounter and the triumphs my team and I have achieved.